The Exbury Junkers: A World War II Mystery - Part V
By: John Stanley
My third prong of attack was to find out more about the seven men who had been travelling on the Junkers. I had a feeling that discovering their identities would provide the key to unlock this mystery. Whilst the official Luftwaffe report into the loss of the Ju 188 gave the names of the men, and brief details of their next of kin, it didn't really tell me anything about who these people really were. It seemed that the only way to find out more would be to trace their surviving relatives.
As you can imagine, more than fifty years on, this was a painstaking process full of frustrations and disappointments. But in the end, I did manage to track down relatives of five of the men. Four of them were happy to communicate with me, and sent me some photographs and personal information, including a copy of the final letters that two of the men killed in the Junkers crash had written to their families. Unfortunately, the sister of the pilot of the plane, whom I traced to Austria, was completely unwilling to speak to me. Whilst this was a major blow for me, since I felt that the pilot would have been the key player in this mystery, I obviously had to respect her wish for privacy.
In finalising the book, of course I've had to take account of the fact that it will be read by the men's relatives. Bear in mind that the book describes the aftermath of the Junkers crash, the scene at the crash site, and also examines some of the speculation as to why the men should have flown across to Britain that morning. These are obviously sensitive subjects, even after 50/60 years, and I have taken as much care as possible can not to offend anyone. In some cases this has meant leaving out some of the more gory details.
I talked earlier about the role of Exbury House as the naval base HMS Mastodon and its involvement in the preparations for the Allied invasion of France. Well, a certain Lieutenant Commander of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve was working on the south coast as a correspondent for the Ministry of Information in the run up to D-Day. Slightly earlier in the war, this man, who was an engineer by trade, had been carrying out trials in the Beaulieu river area, of some of the weaponry that he had designed to support the Allied landings on the Normandy beaches.
Early on the morning of 18th April 1944, this man had just returned to dry land at Lepe, close to the entrance to the Beaulieu River, having taken part in an invasion exercise off the south coast of England on board a tank landing craft, in his capacity as a war correspondent. The man's name was Nevil Shute Norway, more famously known simply as Nevil Shute, the writer.
Lt Cdr Norway, Nevil Shute, was later to record what he encountered that morning in April 1944, in an article entitled Second Front. The following is an extract:
